What can Barack Obama do to rescue Steven Sotloff?

Steven Sotloff, a 31-year-old journalist, could suffer the same fate as James Foley. (Picture: Reuters)

At the end of the shocking video of James Foley’s beheading a second prisoner is shown in an orange jumpsuit. This man is Steven Sotloff, a 31-year-old American journalist.

The murderers tell the US president: ‘The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision.’

But what can leaders like Barack Obama really do in this situation?

They have three basic options. And the grim truth is that none of them are particularly promising.

Option one: Capitulate

Giving in to the demands of the hostage’s captors is always an option, but it’s only going to encourage them to try it again and keep getting their way.

Still, it does happen. In France, in particular, certain companies are thought to be prepared to pay substantial ransoms to protect their workers’ lives. The result? Lots of French people get kidnapped.

James Foley is remembered in his hometown of Rochester, New Hampshire. (Picture: Brian Snyder/Reuters)

Option two: Send in special forces

Rescue operations are fraught with difficulty. They’re often triggered by imperfect information, and they have a mixed record of success.

In January 2013, French soldiers attempted to rescue a hostage known as ‘Denis Allex’ from the Somali Islamist group Al-Shabaab. A fierce gunfight lasted for 45 minutes, during which a French soldier was reportedly killed. Allex is believed to have been executed after the operation.

The Americans have managed to rescue hostages from Iraq in the past, however, and have now revealed they tried to do the same with Foley. But the mission was unsuccessful – their intelligence about his whereabouts proved to be incorrect.

Wreckage of a car belonging to militants in Iraq after it was hit by a US air strike. (Picture: Stringer/Iraq/Reuters)

Option three: Negotiate

Sometimes it’s possible to talk your way out of trouble. In March 2012, Judith Tebbutt was finally freed by her captors in Kenya six months after her husband was shot and killed.

And in April this year four French journalists who’d been held in Syria for ten months were finally released.

‘The question is what you offer in exchange,’ says Rafaello Pantucci, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute think-tank.

‘Is it people getting released, is it money, is it payment, who knows? It depends on who you’re dealing with.’

Barack Obama breaks from his vacation to address journalists after the James Foley beheading. (Picture: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

So what should Obama do?

The American president’s problem is the Islamic State are ‘brutal’, Pantucci warns, and have been beheading Shias for years.

‘We’re dealing with some very nasty people who have a message they’re willing to deliver in a horrendous way,’ he explains. ‘They’ve got form doing this – they know the power and the impact it has.’

Obama has shown he’s prepared to try and rescue Foley, Sotloff and others. But he’s not prepared to back down, either. American jets have continued their attacks on militants. This is a crisis that isn’t going away.

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